fight for the prince's heart
by signelchan
Summary: Once upon a time three kids from one world ended up in a different one and found themselves working with Nohrian royalty. Except these kids aren't exactly the same three that everyone knows about, and rather than properly working with the royals they may or may not have rivalries and romance with one prince in particular in mind instead.


Making the decision to abandon their lives and take up new ones in a different world wasn't entirely something they'd done on their own, or with their own goals entirely in mind, but what mattered was that there were three friends who'd gone from their original timeline and universe to a much different one. These three friends were then taken into service in the royal family of Nohr, each one picking up the position of retainer for one of the royal siblings without any hesitation on their part. This was how the story always was, and how it would always be—except, through divine intervention or perhaps a cruel twist of fate, the three friends who made the journey this time weren't the same three that made it in almost every other universe worth considering.

There was still the womanizing swordsman Laslow, who seemed to be lacking the person he'd most easily make witty banter with, or the person that he'd butt heads with most when it came to taking leads and decisions; he was completely unaware that he was missing either of these characters in his personal story as the way he saw it, he'd gone on this journey with a friend who was looking for adventure and a friend who was looking to stay far away from it. Just like in every other Nohrian timeline, he took up arms as Xander's retainer, an interesting fit for him but somewhere that he had to at least act with slight restraint lest he embarrass his lord. He didn't mind it, not when his other choices were either impossible for him to attain…or were with someone that one of his friends would fit much better with.

However, on the opposite side of things, his friends were not thrilled with their positions that they'd been given, not because they didn't like the people they were expected to serve but because they felt they'd make more sense working alongside Xander. He tried his best to explain that he needed the rigid structure in the workplace so that he could perform without being too much of a failure, but neither of them would listen (and he was unaware that there were any possible timelines out there where the people in their place _would_ listen), so he had to suffer through their bickering about how he managed to get paired up with the best of the three available royals.

"I'm telling you, my position is for my sake, nothing more," he yelled over their combined complaining voices after a bout of particularly obnoxious snarking and whining they'd put him through. "If I was with either of your royals, could you see me being of any use? Set me under Camilla's wing and I'm ogling her all day, stick me with Leo and I get nothing done due to making fun of him. Xander is the only one who's worth something to me."

"You only say that because you're rubbing it in that you got to be with him," his female friend said, shaking her head hard enough to make her pigtails fly into her face and nearly smack him and their other companion in the process. "I'd give anything to be with him, he's so cool and noble and heroic, you're doing me a huge injustice by taking him from me!"

"No, he's doing me an injustice by forcing me with Camilla due to our shared fondness of wyverns," the third member of their trio corrected, narrowing at least the one eye visible to them both, his other eye hidden behind the mask he used to cover half his face. "I understand that the connection is valuable to know her a bit as a person, but her and both her retainers relying on winged mounts is a hazard at best. If I were under Xander's care with you in my place, Inigo, we would have more variation."

Sighing, bringing his fingers to the side of his face to rub at his temples, Laslow looked at the man who'd just addressed him improperly and clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Xander and Peri would not do well to have a third person with mount to round out their trio, that's another reason why I'm the best fit out of all of us. Also, could you refrain from using…that name when we could potentially be overheard? You will do me no favors with Xander if he finds that I'm not exactly who I say I am."

"Why should I care about doing you any sort of favors? You're Inigo, she's Cynthia, I'm Gerome, just because we're lying about who we are to everyone else doesn't mean we do the same with each other." His visible eye no longer narrowing as he started to look around at the scenery surrounding where they'd gathered to talk, the corridors of a castle that felt so foreign but needed to be mentally considered as home, Gerome gave his head a single shake before turning to walk away from the other two. "I'm going to check on my wyvern. If no one's there I may even address her by name, which I am allowed to do, no matter what you want to tell me."

As he stalked away, leaving the other two in his wake, Cynthia rolled her eyes, bent forward with her hands firmly on her hips, and called out after him, "You jerk, we all worked so hard to come up with the names we're using and you're going to just disrespect them like that? Seriously? What kind of friend are you, Hyperion?"

"At least he didn't just yell to everyone that we're using fake names…"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess I shouldn't have yelled that part, oops." There wasn't anyone around to overhear what she'd said, but the truth was that they were walking a fine line with how they addressed each other, especially when they got to talking about things that they were passionate about. Laslow had taken quickly to referring to himself as such, even if his heart stung every time he heard someone call him that name and not the one his mother had given him, and Cynthia was stellar as taking on the persona of the "great hero" Odette, that she came up with completely on her own with about thirty seconds' worth of thought. But Gerome refused to play along with the role he was supposed to be filling, choosing to not go by any name at all than by the name Cynthia had picked for him before they'd gotten wrapped up in being royal retainers.

Two out of three doing their jobs properly wasn't a total loss, and as long as Gerome didn't make it too obvious that the name he'd given the royal family to refer to him with wasn't actually his name at all, they weren't going to get in any trouble over it. "Let's hope he doesn't run into one of the various riders there at the stables, I can already hear him being mocked for speaking to his wyvern with terms of endearment," Laslow said with a shudder, trying to turn his focus away from whatever Gerome was going to do now and Odette (he was _going_ to mentally refer to her as such, he needed to get in the habit of it, even if she was still Cynthia underneath the name) was still in need of being reprimanded for her participation in the argument. "Moving past that, you two need to stop fighting me over my position underneath Xander. You're both exactly where you belong."

"It isn't my fault that I think being retainer for the older prince would be better than being retainer for the younger one," she retorted, sticking her tongue out at him much like a child would. "Not that Leo's bad or anything, but he's so weird compared to what I'm sure Xander is, and as much as I love weird I can't keep having to be the straight man to two really weird people! Can you imagine that, me? The straight man? In any situation?"

"I'll admit, I'm struggling to imagine it." Laughing, Laslow was glad that he wasn't stuck talking to the person who'd keep being condescending about the situation just because he was in the best possible position at the moment, but at the same time he wished that there was something he could do for his friend. She deserved so much better than what she currently had, stuck as retainer of someone rather uptight and strict without heroic traits to them, and working alongside someone that was the exact opposite of what she had always strived to be in life. "Don't worry though, my friend, we'll be out of this mess at some point and you can rejoice then in not being anyone's straight man."

She nodded in agreement with what he was saying, yet when she verbally replied she went right back to what the whole issue was to begin with. "That's true, but wherever we go from here, I'm sure there'll be more royals to help and when that happens, I want to be allowed to help the oldest and most responsible of them all! Promise me that one, Laslow, tell me that I can do that when it happens!"

As much as making that promise would make him feel better, he didn't want to say it and get her hopes up, so he let the conversation die right there. This was the reality that he was having to accept, potentially forever, with any dreams of getting to go elsewhere exactly that: dreams. At times he found himself wondering what it would have been like for him to have done this with any other pair of friends, but it felt like he was destined to take this journey into Nohr with the exact pair he came with, even with the issues they seemed to strike up with how things had shaken out.

The argument about which one of them deserved to serve as Xander's retainer wasn't anything that was going to fade away just by Laslow wishing that he was there in Nohr with other friends, however. The only way he was going to prove to them that they'd been given the roles they deserved was by showing them how perfectly he worked with his lord and his fellow retainer, so that they could look at how they were working with others and fix things from there. It was no secret that he, Peri, and Xander had become a strong trio in their time together, something that couldn't be said about any of the others. On the battlefield, it was hard to keep Camilla and her retainers in the same place, them always wanting to disappear out of sight whenever they got the chance, and Leo and his retainers simply didn't work together well, which was no fault of his own. Yes, they were all upstaged by youngest sister Elise and her retainers because they'd worked together longest, but in terms of the new setups there was a clear division between good and bad.

But no one ever wanted to admit that they were working with a bad setup, and that meant that the middle two siblings were pushing for their retainers to start to work together well, while Xander could look at his pair and have immediate respect from them both. No one was going to benefit from any of the royal siblings having unsteady and uneven retainers trying to serve them, and when they were too busy doing their own thing than protecting their liege then some big, sweeping motion had to be made.

Much to the dismay of those who were hoping they'd get a chance to serve under Xander, the "sweeping motion" that was decided on was a swap of two of the newest retainers, putting Odette and her horse (as pegasi were frowned upon in Nohr, seen as a Hoshidan mount) under Camilla's guidance, while Hyperion tried fighting being moved to being Leo's retainer and failed miserably. When his first interaction with his new partner was a nocked arrow and a threat to shoot his wyvern down if he misbehaved, he knew that this was not going to work out and could ultimately be worse than how it had been.

They ended up having to be switched back within a few days, after an incident involving a couple wyverns, a wayward horse, and a royal sibling cursing at people not even present for allowing for something so disastrous to happen. In watching this all go on around him, Laslow began to wonder if anything would change if he volunteered to switch with one of them for a little bit, to see how they could work with Xander while he tried working with either of the others, but he convinced himself to stay out of it because he liked where he was currently positioned. He'd gotten lucky with it, and there was nothing that was going to get him to change where he was.

Nothing, except maybe a promise of a date with a cute girl or something of that sort. He really did think with his heart and not his brain most of the time, and that was something about him that Odette and Hyperion both knew well. "You think we could get him to trade us for even a day?" she whispered, as they both stood a few paces away from where Laslow was mid-conversation with Peri, talking about something bloody from the sounds of it. "I'm sure I'd get along super well with her, and I mean, I've even got the bouncy pigtails to match! And getting along with her means getting to spend time with Xander, which you know I want to do, and as long as I give Laslow a good reason to do it I think he'll really give me this chance!"

"You're mistaken if you believe that I would allow you to switch with Inigo, when I would benefit from it more than you would," he replied, his foot being stomped on in retaliation for using his old name. "Please, Cynthia, you know how I feel about the names we're going by, they're pointless. No one here's ever heard of us from where we're from, they won't know anything about us if we go by the names we were originally given."

"I happen to enjoy being called Odette, thanks, it's a very cute name and makes me think of taking flight on pegasus-back." Sighing as she thought about what she'd been forced to give up upon arriving in Nohr, she turned her attention back over to what Laslow was doing, only to see that he and Peri had been approached by Xander, riding on his horse and looking like he was on official business. "Gods, what a regal-looking man, I'd do anything to get to fight alongside him in battle! Do…do you think I could do that even if I'm not his retainer?"

"You'd have a better chance of returning to Ylisse if you started walking right this moment than you'd have of that." His words were blunt and his point harsh, but the relationship between Cynthia and Gerome had gone on for so long before they'd become Odette and Hyperion that they were able to have this kind of banter without any hard feelings, something that wasn't possible with anyone else minus the third member of their group. "I do agree with you, however, on the point of doing anything to fight with him."

"Doesn't he seem like he'd know all the cool moves and call his shots before he makes them? That's my kind of guy right there!" Clasping her hands together, she felt her eyes being pulled to lock onto Xander, tracking over every inch of his armor and his stern face, his light hair, the way he sat on his horse, everything. She must have gotten noticeably lost in staring at him, judging by how she ended up with her foot being stepped on, to get her to return to reality with a few quick apologies.

But to be honest, the time she'd spent getting drawn into what made Xander so great, Gerome had been doing the same thing, although not with a fixation on the small details, but rather the commanding and regal air that he came into the area with. "Don't apologize so loudly, you don't want him overhearing you and coming here to see what's going on. Can you imagine how suspicious what we're doing is, standing here watching their conversation? Why, someone may assume we're spies here soon, with how incompetent we've proven ourselves at our jobs."

"I think you're only 'incompetent' at being Camilla's retainer because you're not a cute girl, but I wasn't a good fit for being with her and Beruka. And don't even start me on what's going on being Leo's retainer, it's so hard to be cheerful when you're stuck with those two and their dark attitudes all day!" Cynthia hung her head, feeling slightly ashamed for having admitted to why her current position wasn't working for her. "I just want to be working with someone cool. Someone refined. Someone like Xander."

They exchanged a look that had Gerome (and his half-masked face) rolling his eyes at her while she sheepishly smiled back at him, and when they turned to look where they'd been watching they saw the horse riding away and the conversation dispersing. "What are you two doing here, this is not anywhere that you should be!" Laslow chided as he walked towards them, once again taking his position with the oldest prince more seriously than he really needed to. "You're going to get yourselves in trouble with your employers, and from what I understand making enemies of the Nohrian royal family is not something you want to do, under any conditions."

"We came to talk to you, I think," she replied, before noticing that Gerome was side-stepping away, not wanting to be part of things any longer. Shaking her head at his eagerness to abandon her in any situation, she looked at Laslow and put the biggest smile she could manage on her face, trying to make it look genuine despite her impure intentions. "I want you to switch working with Xander for working with Leo, for just a little bit! Pretty, pretty please, it would mean so much to me!"

"You've lost your mind, I'd never give up working with him, even if you're one of my closest and oldest friends. He keeps me in line, which is a real accomplishment." Chuckling, Laslow saw that her facial expression had not changed despite his rejection of her request, and he felt himself growing confused at how she could remain so upbeat even though he wasn't giving her what she wanted. "Er, Odette? Cynthia? Why are you still grinning like that, I just told you no and that should mean less of a grin and more of a refined smile. Unless you're taking a page from my book and smiling even though you're upset."

It was almost enough to get her to break her grin but she persevered, keeping up the appearance that she was ecstatic about getting shot down once more. That was because, in her mind, she'd concocted a way to slay the foul gatekeeping beast known as her dear friend Laslow, and she was about to use it on him. "Trust me, I'm not upset at _all_ ," she assured him, putting fingers to her cheeks and pushing them up just a bit to make her already large grin appear larger. "I've got a little trade in mind to make my offer sweeter, and all you have to do is accept it and then you can get a date with anyone you'd ever dreamed of!"

"That would be impossible, my friend." Reaching forward and taking hold of one of her pigtails, giving it a hard tug, Laslow laughed as he finally saw her grin fade into a look of sheer disbelief. "Anyone I would want to date, at this point in time, would be somewhere that isn't here. Now, if you're planning on going back home and retrieving any of them, be my guest, but I've yet to really sink my teeth into the dating scene here in Nohr."

"T-then let me pick a girl to get you acquainted with the dating scene! I need you to let me work with Xander, even if it's just for a day! You're hiding the most impressive of all the royals from me and I won't stand for it!" It wasn't every day that she felt like she needed to fight for something she wanted, but right in that moment she felt like she was three seconds from punching someone until she got what she felt she deserved. "I need to know his heroics for myself, first hand, without just having to watch them from the sidelines!"

"Here, let me strike a deal with you since I doubt you'll stop this nonsense at any point if I don't do anything." His lips pushed together in a straight, thin line as he waited for her response, he had to shake his head and deny her once more when her reaction was to demand that his deal include switching who they were retainer for. "No, you're not listening to me, I'm not going to give up my position with Xander unless it's do so or die, and even then I may stick with him until my dying breath. My deal for you involves getting to know him, however, which isn't quite the same but—"

"You introduce me to him and I'll leave you alone about all of this for the rest of my life, I'll make that deal right now!" Her eagerness had caused her to cut him off, but whatever his original deal was going to be, he seemed to accept the one that she'd made in response fairly quickly, offering her a hand for them to shake on it. But before she went through with agreeing to the terms, she had one last thing to add to the mix: "You have to let him meet Hyperion as well, you know that he'll enjoy that as much as I will. Well, maybe not as much, but he'll still enjoy it."

Laslow didn't have to think too hard about accepting the deal even with the addendum, something he made very clear relatively quickly, and she took his hand into hers to seal their agreement. "Then it's settled, I'll get to speaking with Xander about arranging something for the four of us and then we'll never again have to deal with these fights over my liege being the superior one of all of ours."

While Odette knew that he was saying something that she should have been fighting out of loyalty to the man she served, the truth was that she cared so much more about Xander than she ever could have cared about Leo, and she'd never actually met him before. He was oldest, he was smartest on the battlefield, he was cool and composed and everything that his younger brother could only wish to be—and she wanted to be able to say that she knew that man on a personal level.

A blush began to creep over her cheeks as she thought about that point, that she wanted to know Xander not just as a prince but as a person. Hiding her face behind a hand, she squeaked out an apology to Laslow before running off, needing somewhere to hide as she came to terms with what she'd just discovered about herself and her idolization of the prince. This wasn't just her wanting to be his retainer, and she was beginning to think that it really hadn't ever been; she wanted to know him personally, and in more ways than just being on a first-name basis.

Kind of an awkward thought to think when standing face-to-face with one of her friends. Even more awkward to accept when she found out that she wasn't the only one who felt the same way about him.

* * *

When Hyperion found out about the planned meeting between himself, his two friends, and Xander, he cracked a laugh at the absurdity of the idea. "That's hilarious," he said, not laughing past the initial chuckle. "Why would the elder prince of Nohr want to meet with two trouble-making retainers for any reason? He's bound to be firing us for our transgressions, because he doesn't think we're good enough for his siblings."

"No, Laslow said that he's going to arrange this for us because we're us and we deserve it," Odette explained, trying to sound as neutral about everything as she could be. It had been a couple days since she'd realized the truth of how she felt about Xander, about how she wanted to be with him in a non-professional sense, and she'd just now gotten around to telling her friend that anything was happening. "He'll let us know when it's going to happen whenever he knows for himself, we just have to trust him."

"Cynthia, I don't know how to delicately word this, but he's lying to you about this whole thing. A meeting with one of the most notable men in all of Nohr? For us? You're delusional for thinking it would happen and even more delusional for getting your hopes up about it." He sounded serious, but he usually did, and she wasn't sure if she was supposed to crack a lighthearted joke in response or decide that he obviously knew best for her. She did recognize that the agreement that had been made was so far-fetched that it was done solely to get her to shut up, but she wanted to believe that her friend would come through for her and set her up with (getting to know) the prince. "Er, you have a look on your face that's screaming that you're hiding something. Spill it, if you're going to waste my time here."

She felt herself growing anxious on how to respond to that, never having realized that her expression had started giving away what she was thinking. "I'm not hiding anything, I told you exactly what Laslow told me, and that's the truth!"

Adjusting his mask enough to be able to give her a "are you serious" look with both, unobscured eyes, he told her, "I have a hard enough time sorting through Inigo's lies, I suppose I can't fault you for not being able to do the same. You're putting your faith in him when he's most likely spending this time out interacting with women who'll never give him a second look."

"Please Gerome, listen to me!" His name slipped through her lips faster than she'd realized it would, and she wasn't able to catch herself before she'd already said it, him dropping his mask rather than getting it back into its proper position after hearing it. "You're sitting here, talking bad about someone we traveled so far with, just because you don't think he's actually going to come through on this for us! We've gotta believe in our friend, especially when what he's doing is something we both want!"

"One of these days, your blind belief in everything someone tells you will spell your doom, but I suppose I could use to be a bit more open-minded about all of this." Sighing, he bent down to pick his mask back up and found her foot on it, preventing him from grabbing it. "Could you perhaps not do that, I'd never step on something of yours if you dropped it, especially not something that belongs on your face."

"I want you to promise me that you're gonna believe in Laslow and him arranging us some time to dazzle Xander and get to be his retainers instead of who he already has." The last part was tacked on last-minute, said as she was already talking, because Cynthia figured that she needed to make the whole situation look less like her personal thirst after the prince and more like an actual employment thing. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get a rushed promise out of her companion, and she moved her foot to give him back his mask. "Now we just have to wait for when he says we're going to do this, whenever that might be. How long do you think it takes to arrange a friendly meeting with a prince?"

Shrugging, Gerome seemed more focused on getting his mask back on his face than responding to her, but he'd nearly dropped it again when someone in the distance barked out his fake name, and he had to scramble to put it back on as he started running towards where his fellow retainer was waiting for him. This left Cynthia by herself for a moment, time she spent thinking about how well that conversation had gone overall, and how Gerome now thought that they were doing this meeting to get a better work position, while she knew that the moment she'd meet the prince she'd be trying to impress him for personal reasons.

Her thoughts started to get out of hand by the time there was someone there calling for her to make her way to something that the prince she currently served needed her at, their voice even more unnerving than the one that had been calling for Gerome before. It wasn't going to be all that much longer until she could rise above her station and make a name for her as someone fighting alongside the prince but not in a protector sense, and she needed to keep up appearances until what she wanted was right there in front of her.

There were just two small things that stood in between her and her fantasy of being a Nohrian princess: the fact that Laslow didn't seem to have any intentions of getting back to her, and the fact that she was sure that Xander had met so many other women he'd choose before her. There wasn't any reality to what she was wanting out of this, it was more likely that she'd be picked to replace one of his retainers than to be his beloved, but it was always nice to have some fantasizing happening when doing boring, non-heroic things as retainer to a prince who couldn't always be counted on to dress properly.

The first thing was solved when Laslow came to her after a couple weeks, bringing with him the news that he'd managed to convince Xander to have a bit of a meet and greet with them for a few minutes in an afternoon exactly one week later, but they needed to stay completely professional, not do anything stupid, and maintain at least a bit of composure when in the prince's presence. It was hard for her to agree to those terms, but it was be composed or never get the chance again, and she wasn't risking losing what she was getting. When he left to go tell their third person the same news, she couldn't help but give herself a silent cheer for managing to get to the point she was at. Not everyone had the chance to make their dreams reality, and she was going to have to take that chance and run as far as she could before it was taken away from her.

However, answering one of the issues there were didn't take care of them both, and that whole week was spent with her worrying that maybe, just maybe, she'd get to meet him and find out that he already had his eyes on someone. She was Odette to him, Cynthia to her friends, she was a heroic, spunky, cute woman either way, so what was there that someone could have that she didn't? Were they super plain, unremarkable in every way? Or maybe they were someone regal like he was, a royal from another country, perhaps? She wasn't going to beat out a plain person or a royal one, not when she had no background to speak of and a bit of a disciplinary record there with the family due to her behavior. All she could hope was that he wasn't interested in anyone and that she could swoop right in and make him hers with little effort.

Unbeknownst to her, on the other side of the situation, Gerome was facing the exact same issue that she was, because now that he knew this meeting was real, he wanted to make his mark on impressing the prince. He wanted to get out of being Camilla's retainer, but he had little interest in just moving to yet another similar position. Because he was a human actually capable of normal conversation without getting distracted or showing all the cards in his hand, he'd learned from people familiar with the situation that there was quite a unique twist to the situation that would benefit him in it. Specifically, when Laslow had come to tell him that the meeting was happening, he'd made sure to ask that it was going to be just the four of them, Cynthia the only female in attendance. The response he'd received—"Yes, that'll be the case, Peri won't be around for the ten minutes you're with him. Why do you ask?"—was exactly what he'd been looking for, but he didn't say a word about why.

He spent that whole week figuring out how to make everything work out in his favor, even if it meant it not working out in Cynthia's. He _also_ made sure to start mentally referring to her with her new name, and himself with his, just in case they were used and he needed to be on top of recognizing who was being spoken about. The last thing he really wanted was to make a fool out of himself in front of someone he was trying to impress for personal reasons. Personal, non-work related reasons, that went hand-in-hand with what Cynthia was trying to accomplish.

As it turned out, they were both going to go into this meeting, that had been arranged to get them to meet the prince and stop fighting over who wanted to be his retainer more than Laslow did, and attempt to woo the prince into not replacing his guard, but to date one of them. But it was going to be a fruitless endeavor for at least one, if not both, and as she thought he was going into it for gain in his position, while he knew that she wanted to get with the prince romantically and wouldn't be able to, the odds were stacked against her, but not necessarily in his favor. This was, naturally, because this was the first meeting between any of them, and while Gerome always had been better at getting the attention of others in romantic places than anyone else, he had the distinct misfortune of having allowed Laslow to get close to the prince in all the time he'd been serving as his retainer.

It was a shame, then, that the largest barrier between all of them in the matter wasn't that, just as Cynthia had feared, the prince already had his eyes on someone and it wasn't any of them—that would have been too kind of a barrier for them to face. When they arrived at the meeting, both dressed as nicely as they could be with their limited wardrobes there in Nohr, they weren't greeted by Xander himself, but instead Laslow in his place, thanking them for coming. "Let's remember what I told you both when I informed you this was happening," he said as he led them down some hallway they'd both never seen before. "It's not every day that you get the opportunity to speak to the prince in a setting like this, so don't squander it with anything silly. That goes more for you, Odette, than for Hyperion, I'll have you know."

They both assured him they wouldn't, but it was far from the truth for either of them. Odette was thinking about how the prince must have looked, waiting for them, hopefully in more casual of clothes than his usual armor. Would there be any more skin showing than what they'd seen him exposing in all prior glimpses? Would she be able to look at him and get a peek at his chest, or have him sitting there in much less than normal? What if he'd just been training and was cooling himself off, stripped down to the bare minimum? Her face was heating up at thinking of the possibilities, unable to keep her fantasy thoughts hidden to the people she was currently with; Hyperion was thinking along the same lines as her but hadn't allowed for himself to even crack a smile at some of the more vivid images that crossed his mind while they walked.

Entering the room that Xander was waiting for them in, the whole atmosphere changed the moment they stepped past the doors and Laslow moved aside to allow for them to approach him. "What a surprise, two visitors that seem to have wanted to get to meet me for some time now, as I understand it," he said in greeting, looking up at the two from whatever it was he'd been reading. "I suppose it's meant to happen, I should get to know who is employed under my siblings, especially when they're as polarizing as you both."

"Polarizing?" they repeated simultaneously, turning to look at each other for a moment before going back to staring at him in all his princely, fresh-off-the-battlefield glory. This meeting meant so little to him that he hadn't even changed out of his battle armor to make it happen, and they were starting to catch on to the fact that when Laslow said they needed to stay professional, it was because he wasn't going to view it as anything but a meeting that was focused on their work performance.

For the entire ten minutes they were there, they were treated to a list of all the complaints he'd heard about them, about all the times they'd picked fights, caused issues, pranked the younger prince, so on and so forth, and they had to stand there and take the criticisms and complaints like they weren't bothering them at all. In the background, knowing fully that this was what was going to happen, Laslow was having the hardest time maintaining a straight face, wanting to laugh at their misfortune rather than feel bad about leading them into such a dirty trap. He didn't want to make the mistake of being caught reveling in what had happened to them, though, which was why he stifled every laugh he made and stayed standing at attention until they were told to leave.

"Seems like we'll be stuck in our current positions for the foreseeable future," Gerome grumbled once they were walking down the hall, all positive thoughts he'd had of the prince before the meeting pushed aside for the memories of being chewed out as he was. "That's fine, I wouldn't want to work for him anyway. What a pompous—"

"Attractive, person-focused man?" Cynthia finished, bothered that the first impression she'd made on Xander was entirely out of her control but still hopelessly focused on seeing the possibility that she'd be able to make an impact on him. "Don't be so negative, he was just doing his older brother job, next time we see him we'll get our chance to state our case."

From in front of them, doing his job of leading them back to where he'd retrieved them from, Laslow couldn't help but let one of those chuckles escape him. "I'm sorry, but do you really think there will be a next time? Xander would rather eat his horse than have either of you replace me, I'll have you know."

"Inigo, you're already on thin ice for what you've done, why would you dare cut in like that?" Sounding annoyed and aware that they'd been set-up, Gerome wished he had a weapon on him to land an attack on his companion while his back was facing him, but as he was unarmed he had to let him go physically unscathed. "I've never heard a man give such a harsh talking-to using fake aliases in my life, and I would prefer not to ever do it again. Working as his retainer is nothing I'd want to do, not when working with Camilla is a relative breeze compared to what you must go through."

"Yeah, what he said, except about Leo and not Camilla, because ew, that didn't work out very well for me when I tried it." Bouncing her gray-ish pigtails as she shook her head rapidly, trying not to think too much about her time with Camilla, Cynthia ended up looking back down the hall towards the room they'd left. "But even if I wouldn't want to work for him, getting to know Xander better would still be neat. Hero worship, you know?"

Without missing a beat, the two guys she was with shot her plan down, telling her in the plainest, yet relatively vague, terms possible that he wasn't exactly…into people like her. It wasn't enough to break her determination, even if the fact that both men knew it told the other that they'd most likely learned that for some personal reason. All three of them had somehow ended up with some version of romantic desires for one particular prince of Nohr, and they were all going to have to accept that they just weren't going to get him, especially as none of them were _royalty_ and he had refined tastes that only a fellow royal could satisfy. Perhaps in some other timeline where it were these three to go to Nohr, one of them would end up with the man they wanted, but the one they were in? No such luck.

* * *

 **A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREEN**

 **I...mean, I came up with this idea of Awakening representation in Fates-swapping a few months ago and knew exactly what I would do if I ever did it, which led to me stealthily-not-stealthily asking someone which Awakening kids they most relate to. so that's where the trio in this got its start, haha. I know it isn't much but I really wanted to write you something this year and nothing's ever going to top the long birthday fic I wrote you, so this year I just had Fun with it. I hope you enjoyed it too c:**


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